Don’t bother applying for a job if you think people can’t change sex, NHS trust tells health official

They're not actually believing it - it's performative abeisance to an orthodoxy.

It is. They are just going along with it, so they never actually interrogate the absurdity of what they are saying.

it will be one of the questions I will be asking candidates at first stage interview.”

Go on Melanie, you do that. Not kept up to date with cases recently in this area?

I mean, that's also worrying.

Being willing to mouth untruths in the service of an ideology is not good practise.

From The Telegraph:

"Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, a Tory peer who has also expressed gender-critical views and campaigned on issues such as single sex NHS wards, applied for the role of chair but was told that there were candidates whose “background and experience were more relevant”.

Tavistock did not offer an interview to Lady Nicholson, who is profoundly deaf and has impaired sight, despite Government rules stating that disabled people who meet the essential criteria for the post should be guaranteed an interview."

I am genuinely astonished. I am beginning to think no more patients should be admitted to the Tavistock.

I hope, however, that this will start the process of bringing this incredible situation to the attention of the medical world, which must surely share our incredulity that an extremist view has taken so strong a hold.

How is such ridiculous thinking gaining such traction? People who are supposedly intelligent believing this nonsense is so worrying for the future.

Sorry Lord Robert Winston.

That means they wouldn't employ Prof. Sir Robert Winston either.

'a specialist health and life sciences senior executive leadership consultant at GatenbySanderson.

Trained as a midwife, followed by an academic career at UCL coupled with 15 years’ experience in senior level executive search in life sciences and healthcare leaves me uniquely placed to offer insights across all senior leadership functions in these sectors.

Having worked within the NHS Leadership Academy supporting board appointments, national level talent management and leadership development activity in the NHS, has given me a significant level of direct NHS knowledge, networks and relationships with key executives.

I am an experienced career coach working with senior leaders across the NHS.

Melanie holds a Masters in Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychiatry and a PhD in Metabolic Biochemistry and Genetics from University College, London.'

All that experience and those quals, and you can't handle the idea that sex is immutable? Amazing.

Did I say I was amazed?

I'm amazed.

Being Gender Critical is not the same as denying the existence of gender dysphoria which is the actual diagnosis. It is crucial that treatment and diagnosis is done objectively. A fixed belief that sex is mutable or that a single outcome or treatment pathway is preferable should never be a selection criteria for any post. The Tavi is not fit for purpose.

I wonder if they'd discount people who hold certain religious beliefs, equally? And think that was perfectly legitimate and okay. Amazing.

'your view on sex being immutable is not a view point that the trust would wish any of their non-executives to hold'

What's utterly amazing is that anyone would commit this kind of view to writing.

Very helpful from both Kate Grimes and Lucy Bannerman in publicising it. Hard as it feels at the moment this will help progress change at the Tavistock.

Its absolutely ridiculous

Humans can’t change sex

This whole thing would be so much easier if we could…obvs

And i am happy to support the trans people i know and their families, I honestly believe that some people are happier presenting as the opposite sex etc

But I can’t believe humans can actually change sex and absolutely no one i know believes this is a fact either…even if they are completely onboard with TWAW

Oh fabulous! Bring it on.

You'd think Gatsby Sanderson would know better than to ask people about their protected beliefs during interview. Are they going to start asking about religion and pregnancy? Ffs when will it sink in that people are allowed to believe that there are only 2 sexes and that you can't change sex?

MidCenturyClegs gender woo woo is a protected belief. Forstater case confirmed that: GC is protected as a lack of belief in gender woo woo.

So I would say that the Tavi position is tenable, but only if they present their own gender views as belief rather than fact

Well, yes - it would be a reasonable position if the point of their organisation was to be a Church of Gender.

But they're supposed to be a medical service, part of the NHS, working with people who are confronting their desire to be the opposite sex when they cannot actually change that.

Insisting people deny reality relevant to their field of operation clearly does not serve their purpose in the way necessary for such discrimination to be permitted under the EA2010.

Best you can argue is that the "best treatment" for such individuals is for everyone involved, even tangentially, as overseers, to participate in the lie. I don't think that would stand up though - the person overseeing a role play has to know it's just a role play to run it effectively for its participants.

(I recommend the film Synecdoche, New York btw, which is on this theme - a playwright + stage director gets a bit too caught up in his own play.)

But if it is a belief-based organisation like a Church, rather than an evidence-based organisation, I think they'd be okay? They'd need to change their terms of operation though, and surely they would not be eligible for NHS funding?

I would have thought it should be utterly vital for anyone working for the Tavistock to understand that sex is immutable (in humans), and tailor their services within that reality.

Are they no longer a reality-based medical service at all?

This is interesting though. Because religious organisations are allowed in some circumstances to discriminate on grounds of belief, for example a church saying they will only employ a yourh worker who holds Christian beliefs. So I would say that the Tavi position is tenable, but only if they present their own gender views as belief rather than fact